Okeeheelee Park No Longer Down In The Dumps

January 7, 1986|By Paul Heidelberg, Staff Writer

WEST PALM BEACH — Okeeheelee Park, 975 acres of rolling hills located off Forest Hill Boulevard just east of Florida`s Turnpike, could be called the public version of Broward County`s very private Eagle Trace Golf Course.

Eagle Trace is a jewel of a course whose hills were sculpted from muck and fill trucked in during a decade of the building of the city of Coral Springs. The soil, which was not solid enough to serve as a foundation for future homes and businesses, was dumped on the Eagle Trace site. The resulting hills and mounds are a key part of the ``stadium`` concept in new golf courses that allow tournament spectators better views.

You wouldn`t think of rows of dusty dump trucks when you see Eagle Trace`s annual nationally televised Honda Classic golf tournament. Spending the afternoon watching clouds float past the pine tree-studded rolling terrain at Okeeheelee Park doesn`t bring dump trucks to mind, either, but they also played an important part in the park`s birth.

Okeeheelee Park, the county`s largest, used to be a rock pit -- actually, a series of rock pits, which were strip-mined for shell rock.

``All the park`s lakes resulted from holes that were dug for shell,`` said Michelle Park, director of recreation for the Palm Beach County Parks and Recreation Department. Park said 1.5 million cubic yards of fill went into making the hills at Okeeheelee. ``The hills were built primarily out of sand -- sand that had come from developing the lakes, or sand that had been brought in.``

The park`s metamorphosis from an ugly rock pit to a place of idyllic scenery continued when grass was seeded and trees planted.

``A lot of people were critical because we also tore down some trees, but none of them were native,`` Park said. ``We took out Australian pine and melaleuca and replaced them with pine, oak and other trees native to Florida.``

The park`s development has been planned in five stages, with two stages completed.

The park opened in March of 1981, with Phase I, which included four multi- purpose football/soccer fields, four adult softball fields, four youth league baseball fields and a water-skiing course. In May of 1984, Deena Brush of Sacramento, Calif., set a women`s slalom world record on the course.

``It`s considered one of the best water-skiing courses in the nation,`` Park said. ``It`s conducive to breaking records because of the way the land is designed. The course maintains a fairly smooth surface at all times with no backwash, making it an ideal surface for speed.``

Okeeheelee Park`s Phase II included a picnic pavilion and nature area. Phase III, not yet under construction, will include more picnic pavilions, a boating concession that will include sailboats, and bicycle trails throughout the park.

Phase IV should be sweet sounds to Palm Beach County music lovers. The phase`s chief construction will be an amphitheater, which will seat 7,000 underneath an overhang and an additional 7,000 on grassy slopes.

``We`ll be bringing in big-name concerts -- approximately 50 a year,`` Park said. ``Everything from ballet and philharmonic orchestras to soft rock like Kenny Loggins and Jimmy Buffett. We hope that it will be open by January 1987.

``We will actually be leasing the land to a corporation that has similar facilities in the Northeast. They will pay for construction and actual operation. The amphitheater is expected to bring in about $400,000 to the county in the first year of operation, with increasing revenue as years go by.``

Phase V, a water-theme park, is at least three years from completion, Park said.

``It`s in the early stages,`` she said. ``It will be a revenue-producing facility because we will bring in a private company to build and operate the concern. That way they will absorb all of those expenses and in turn will commit a percentage of their profits to the county each year.

``We`re not sure just yet what kind of facility it will actually be. Possibilities are a wave pool, giant water slide, and a competitive swimming and diving complex.``

And like the unattractive caterpillar that has become the beautiful butterfly, the dusty rock pit will have been transformed into a five-phase park.